Our $1000.00 Cat, Beanie

Ok so you know how Gizmo arrived in our family and now I’d like to tell you about how we got our thousand-dollar cat named, Bean.

Halloween 2006 was like all the rest since I closed our haunted attraction two years earlier. My daughter, her friends, our friends, my husband and I put on a Haunted Carnival in our front yard on Halloween night for the Trick or Treater’s (ToT’s). It's more fun to host games for them play rather than just hand out candy and be done. I spend weeks making all kinds of spooky games like a six foot haunted tree with a strobe light and sound effects that is activated when the kids toss bats into its evil mouth. Our Haunted Carnival has become a favorite of kids and parents as they build Halloween memories. I really think the parents are more like kids than the kids are sometimes!

Anyboo, in 2006 an older group of ToTer’s came and played games. A little black and white cat they brought with them was adorable and took center stage with with kids and parents alike! The kitten looked to be about seven to eight weeks old and was the stockiest little cat I’ve ever seen. It had paws the size of catcher mitts for a young cat! This was the most loving animal I’ve ever seen and he was a joy to have a round the kids since the cat seem to delight in any attention it got. The little cat purred non-stop as he’d watch each child play a game and would go from kid to adult in a never-ending need for petting.

When the kids that brought the cat were leaving, I pointed out that their black and white kitten was still in the carnival. They said the friendly cat wasn’t theirs and that it’d be following them all night. I looked down the kitten that was wrapped firmly around my daughter’s ancles. I urned to ask the kids a different question when I noticed that they’d raced off down the street and into the night. I could see my daughter was quickly falling in love with the purring kitten and I knew the next thing she was going to say. “No we already have a wild-man cat Gizmo and that's enough.”

When we had lull in the crowds, we ask Jeff, my husband if we could keep him. No, was his answer since we already had a cat and he was right--we didn’t know its owner was missing this cat. Then my daughter and I got him to agree to keep the little cat safely in the house all night since fools are sometimes mean to cats on Halloween night. He agreed that if the cat was still at our house after we took everyone out to Steak-N-Shake--we could keep him in the house. Claire and I were on pins and needles while we had our shakes and fries wondering if the little cat would stay. The drive home seemed endless but was really only a ten minute drive!

I can’t tell you how happy we were when we pulled in and saw a little black head pop up out of one of the games we’d left out. We raced over to the cat and playfully fought over who’d get to hold him next. Even my husband got into the act! But he made me promise to call Annie, the Animal Control Officer in the morning and see if anyone was missing this cat. Then he told us “if no one claims him--we could keep him.” We all cheered and went into the house.

We went into the house, released Gizmo and put the new kitten in the bathroom after I made a makeshift litter box, dish of food and a bowl of water. The little cat was so hungry! He had most of the food in the dish eaten before I got out of the bathroom. I tickled me to listen to him purr while he ate. We all took turns going into the bathroom and petting the docile cat before we went to bed that night.

The next morning, I called Annie (Animal Control Office) with a knot in my throat. I was worried that someone had already called her and was looking for their kitten. Annie laughed as I told her our plight with the kitten but I promised to call her and list the found cat. Yes, I got more ribbing about more cats! Then she said the shelter was full and asks if we would mind to keep him. Not a problem! They would post the found kitten on their website, newspaper and list it with the office in case someone called looking for the cat. Then she told me the best part--we were free to keep him if no one called and we still wanted him. Snicker! Annie knew the answer to that question since she was the officer that did the home follow up visit when we adopted Gizmo. She marveled at how Giz wouldn’t be worth taking back because he was already spoiled rotten!

On the third long day, we celebrated getting to keep and name the kitten! He was so sweet all the time unlike our wild man Giz that really doesn't want to get petted very often. We started to name him something Halloween related since that was the night we found him but none of them fit him his sweet personality. So we decided on Bean since we kept saying, “he was such sweet bean!”

I bundled him off to our vet for a once over, get his shots and schedule him for neutering. He had several things wrong with him (parasites and such) and that visit cost us $168.32!!! Ouch, So much for him being a free cat! LOL

Beanie and Gizmo got a long great after Bean boxed Gizmo’s aggressive ears once. Bean’s placid temperament was amazing and he never got into anything nor did he play a lot. Months later, we noticed that he slowly stopped eating but his tummy was terribly bloating. I called the vet and made another appointment.

Bad news. Beanie wasn’t placid--he was really sick. X-rays showed that his kidneys, bladder and other organs were filled to the brim with stones/crystals making it almost impossible for him to urinate. We were surprised to find out that he’d been racked with pain for weeks but he’d not made a sound or act sick. We thought he was just a lazy cat. He needed a $668.00 surgery and had to be on expensive cat food ($46.00 for a 20 lb bag) for the rest of his life. Gulp!

We’d had just made reservations for our summer vacation. We all sat down as a family and tried to decide what to do. We loved Bean dearly and couldn’t stand to let him suffer. The decission was easy. We decided to forget our vacation and fix our Sweet Bean. None of us gave canceled the vacation a second thought as Beanie was operated on. Our vet is one in a million; she gave us quite a break on the bill since it was going to be a lot higher than she thought originally. She’d found other complications when they opened up little Beanie. They literally had taken a teaspoon and scooped out the crystals from all the effected organs! Our vet offered to let us make payments for the surgery but we gave her the funds we had set aside for the vacation instead. By the time we were done--he’d cost us almost a thousand dollars! So much for our cat being free. Wink!

Finally, after days at the clinic, we could bring Beanie home! We were so excited and we all stayed with him as he lay around a few more days recouping from his surgery. People dropped by to see him and brought him toys since he can’t eat anything but the special diet. He was a different cat when he was well! He played all the time and even started getting into stuff. But that didn't change the fact that he still held the title of being "Worlds Laziest Cat!" LOL

You know, getting Bean was one of the best things that ever happened to us and as for forking over our vacation fund? Any other trade has ever felt so good! LoL We did get to go on a scaled down vacation later that summer so it all worked out for the best.

How is Bean doing now? I’ll be writing more about the boys as the months go by. He lies on my desk as I work and will slowly move his head over so that when I go to grab my mouse--I get an old Bean-head instead. He sleeps with me and has taken over my TV chair--that’s fine with me. It’s a small price to pay for being gifted with such a wonderful little cat that is every bit a member of our family. Oh hummm . . . Little cat. Beanie is a huge cat now--he weights 18 ½ pounds of gelatinous love baby. Oh he’s not fat--just one huge, healthy and happy kitty.

Sarah